Ramblings

Clare explores a remote and beautiful stretch of coastline between Portuairk and Sanna Bay on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. Ardnamurchan's far coastline is the most westerly part of the British mainland and has some of Scotland’s most gorgeous beaches. Sanna Bay, in particular, is an expanse of white sand and turquoise seas with views that stretch across to the inner Hebridean islands of Rum, Eigg a...

Clare is in Fife hiking with John Fletcher who, in 2009, was the first man in Scotland to donate a kidney to a stranger. In another pioneering first, he launched Britain's first commercial deer farm back in 1973. Their route begins on John's farm in Auchtermuchty, surrounded by rare white stags. Walking brings John great joy and he - along with a fellow kidney donor, and a renal nurse – takes Clar...

Clare hikes with the inspirational adventurers Hazel and Luke Robertson on the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh. They are mountain leaders, polar explorers and public speakers with many personal experiences to draw upon. Hazel spent four years of her childhood growing up in Canada and Alaska, which developed her love of the outdoors. At the age of 30, Luke became the first Scot to ski solo and unsupp...

A fascinating wander through Coventry, the 2021 UK City of Culture. Ian Harrabin is a Trustee of the City of Culture so is the perfect guide to lead Clare Balding along a richly historic urban route. He is also Chair of the 'Historic Coventry Trust' which is running a host of projects designed to preserve, and make more accessible, some of the most interesting and little known parts of the city. T...

Debbie North uses a motorised wheelchair and is a powerful advocate for making the countryside accessible for all. Debbie had always been a keen walker but, in her 40s, was diagnosed with spinal degeneration. Very quickly she became a wheelchair user yet made the decision that this wasn’t going to stop her accessing the countryside that she loves. Today she takes Clare on one of her favourite ramb...

Bex Band was not an outdoorsy person, but one day she decided to hike the length of Israel. Whilst there she noticed very few women walking the 1000km National Trail so, on her return, decided to do something about it. She set up Love Her Wild, an organisation that encourages women to become more adventurous. The community now has over 25,000 members. On today’s walk, she takes Clare for a loop ar...

Kay Mellor is one of our most successful screenwriters. On today's ramble she takes Clare on her favourite route at Harewood House in her home city of Leeds. En route they discuss The Syndicate, Kay's hit drama series on BBC One and the iPlayer, which tells the story of a group of people who have won a huge amount of money on a lottery. Kay also discusses how walking helps her in the writing proce...

Rhiane Fatinikun takes Clare on one of her favourite walks in the Peak District. Starting in Edale they take in Hollins Cross, Lose Hill and Mam Tor. Rhiane set up Black Girls Hike to provide a safe space for black women to explore the countryside. It’s been such a success that there are now three branches: in the North West, the West Midlands and London. As she tells Clare, it’s a way of building...

The best-selling author Cressida Cowell takes Clare for a nostalgic walk near Chichester in West Sussex. As well as writing the whoppingly successful ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ series, Cressida created ‘The Wizards of Once’ books which draw upon her childhood memories of roaming across the South Downs. She grew up in London but during school holidays would visit her grandparents where she found th...

Glass artist, Arabella Marshall, takes Clare for a walk at Minsmere in Suffolk. Their focus is an old chapel ‘bleak and broken’ which provided Arabella with the inspiration for a major work of art: a new stained-glass window fitted into one of the ruin’s old apertures. It’s a striking modern feature in the abandoned building. The idea came to her when out walking which, alongside her artistic prac...

Sound Recordist, Ellie Williams, takes Clare for an audio-rich wander at Abbots Pool in North Somerset. Walking, she says, is as essential to her as food and sleep and – whether she’s recording, or not – she’s always super-aware of the richness of the sounds around her. En route she contemplates why her profession is still so male-dominated and how it can be opened up to more women. Grid Ref for A...

Do big cats roam the British countryside? It’s a long running debate, one that’s never far from the headlines. A few years ago on Ramblings, Clare saw what she described as an “enormous black cat” on a walk near Ross on Wye. Several newspapers followed this up, as did the ‘Big Cat Conversations’ podcast which is hosted by Rick Minter: he set up a camera trap close to Clare’s sighting and made cont...

How many times have you been out for a walk and spotted intriguing shapes in the landscape? Your instinct tells you that these dips, hollows, lumps, bumps and oddly shaped stones aren’t natural features, but what on (and under) the earth are they? Mary-Ann Ochota is an anthropologist who writes about these curious archaeological forms and how to understand them. In her book, Hidden Histories, she...

Simon Gudgeon is one of our leading sculptors, but he didn't practice his art until his mid 40s. He'd worked as a solicitor, a photographer, and a landscape gardener before, one day, picking up a lump of clay to see what he could create. It wasn't long before he knew that sculpting was all he wanted to do. His distinctive creations, often inspired by the natural world, are showcased at his own ven...

The Oscar winning producer of The King’s Speech, Gareth Ellis-Unwin, takes Clare on one of his regular rambles from Pangbourne in Berkshire to Goring on Thames in South Oxfordshire. Gareth had an unusual route into film-making and now works with the charity, ScreenSkills, which is trying to make it easier for people of all backgrounds to join the industry. Walking - Gareth says - is vital for the...

Anneka Rice is a self-declared obsessive rambler who says she feels out of sorts if she doesn’t walk every day. Today she takes Clare on her favourite route along the banks of the Thames where she discusses how the river ‘tethers’ her, something she needs following a childhood that left her feeling ‘untethered’. Anneka became a household name in the 1980s thanks to the TV series Treasure Hunt, whi...

Clare Balding walks with Anita Rani on Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes. They also explore Walthamstow Wetlands, an internationally important nature reserve opened to the public in 2017. The Countryfile presenter recalls her outdoorsy upbringing in Yorkshire and how much she values London's green spaces. She also discusses her plans to write a childhood memoir; how appearing on 'Who Do You Think Yo...

Clare goes beachcombing on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent with author Lisa Woollett. Lisa is fascinated by what we throw away and how it reflects our changing lifestyles. Her new book ‘Rag and Bone’ tells the story of her discoveries in beachcombing and mudlarking and how it links to her family history: her great grandfather was a scavenger and her grandfather was a dustman. Clare and Lisa begin thei...

David Wilson is a well known criminologist and former prison governor. Clare meets him in the village of Wicken on the Northamptonshire/Buckinghamshire border near to where he lives for a walk to the nearby village of Leckhampstead. This is one of David's regular routes. He has been walking around 50 miles a week since lockdown began in March. He does it to keep his weight down and to help process...

Barry Farrimond, who plays Ed Grundy in The Archers, takes Clare Balding for an adventurous hike across Dartmoor. As they navigate the granite boulders of Wistman's Wood and scramble cross the West Dart River, Barry discusses the challenges of recording The Archers during lockdown, the knot he invented a few years ago (the Farrimond Friction Hitch) and Open Up Music, an organisation he co-founded...

On a hot day, Clare and Alice Roberts walk from the village of Draycott in Somerset up through the Draycott Sleights Nature Reserve with views opening out across the Bristol Channel to Wales and across the Somerset Levels to Glastonbury Tor. Alice says she finds the ancient landscape fascinating and imagines the inhabitants of past centuries who would have lived on the small settlements on the Lev...

Dom Joly, famous for Trigger Happy TV, takes Clare on a walk near to his home in Gloucestershire. Leaving the village of Winchcombe, they walk up Spoonley Hill to see the remains of a Roman Villa. As they walk, Dom talks about his love of walking, discovered later in life after he became a travel writer. Recently he walked the entire length of Lebanon where he was born. His book The Hezbollah Hiki...

Clare Balding digs into the archives to find the most dramatic weather conditions she's recorded in; she also hears from those walkers who've had had the biggest adventures. The highlights include: Satish Kumar who covered 8000 miles when he walked from India to North America in the 1960s, to protest about nuclear arms; retired RAF officer, Lucy Newcombe, who has walked around the British coastlin...

Clare Balding continues her exploration of the archives and finds a selection of entertaining highlights which give some good advice to walkers both experienced and novice. Writer, Simon Ingram, recommends walking at 'guide's pace' when climbing steep hills; bothy-bagger, Phoebe Smith, discusses the etiquette of staying in these remote shelters; and experienced long-distance walker, Jenny Walters,...

Clare Balding recalls her favourite walks with a colourful variety of writers and singers including Bill Bryson, Toyah Wilcox, folk duo Ninebarrow, and the choral group Werca's Folk. Clare has been walking on air since 1999, and for this lockdown series of highlights has been digging into the archives to retrieve some of her most memorable moments: Today she gets dressed with Bill Bryson, takes a...